Putting Labour’s landslide into perspective

So, the expected Labour landslide happened and Sir Keir Starmer has entered the famous black door of 10 Downing Street as prime minister. The party’s massive majority however came on the back of a historically low vote share, while first-past-the-post also minimised the rewards for smaller parties’ millions of voters. Text by Chris Connelley, graphics by Russell Hall.

Thursday 4 July proved a historic day for Sir Keir Starmer, when voters around the UK propelled the Labour Party from one of its worst defeats in 2019 to one of its historic highs, adding him to the decidedly short list of Labour prime ministers, namely Ramsey McDonald, Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

The final tally from the election campaign demonstrates the remarkable turnaround, with Labour jumping in just five years from 202 to 411 seats, and a majority of 172. We are in similar territory to the Blair-era New Labour landslide of 418 seats and a 179 majority in 1997.

Look closer, however, and it is clear that Labour's whopping majority in terms of seats gained masks a decidedly more modest level of support for the victorious party. Labour won its landslide with just 35% of the vote, the lowest share for any winning party. Indeed, it secured more votes under Jeremy Corbyn in 2017, when it took a 40% share.

It also lost ground in a number of locations, including Leicester South, where shadow paymaster general, Jonathan Ashworth, was defeated by an independent in a constituency, one of several, where Labour’s stance on Gaza cost it dear. In Islington North, the party’s candidate  was defeated by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, now standing as an independent, whilst shadow culture minister Thangam Debbonaire was a casualty of a huge Green surge in Bristol Central.

Worst ever result

The Conservatives, traditionally lauded as the most successful party in the modern political era, secured 121 seats, down 250 on their 2019 total, their worst result ever. Traditionally safe southern seats, never seriously contemplated as being in play, were lost, amongst them South West Norfolk, where former prime minister Liz Truss was defeated by 630 votes. The vast majority of 2019 Brexit election red wall wins in the Midlands and north of England flipped back to Labour.

The Liberal Democrats however did well, resuming their position as the nation’s third party after the Scottish National Party slumped to just nine seats following a major Labour resurgence north of the border. Sir Ed Davey’s party now holds 71 seats, picking up many Conservative constituencies in the south and south west of England behind the so-called ‘blue wall'.

A number of these gains were local, with Josh Babarinde sweeping to power in neighbouring Eastbourne, taking over 50% of the vote, and James McCleary winning in Lewes, displacing former health minister Maria Caulfield.

Reform and Greens advance

Reform UK, the successor to the Brexit Party, secured over 4m votes, more than the Liberal Democrats, and won five seats, including Clacton, the new political home of its leader, Nigel Farage, who took over the reins from Richard Tice at the beginning of the election campaign. Farage has finally become an MP on his eighth attempt, and is joined by Tice, who won in Boston and Skegness, Rupert Lowe in Great Yarmouth, James McMurdock in South Basildon and East Thurrock and former Tory deputy chairman, Lee Anderson, in Ashfield.

The Greens had their best general election night ever, taking three target seats whilst holding their Brighton Pavilion stronghold, where former London Assembly member Sian Berry replaced Caroline Lucas, the party’s first and previously only MP since 2010. Its 2m votes and success in both modish urban seats and traditionally more conservative rural seats will challenge assumptions that it is simply a party of fashionable protest, building on phenomenal success in local government over recent years.

That growth is evident here in Hastings, where the Greens now lead the borough council and hold all Cabinet posts as the largest single party in an authority where no single party has overall control.

The mismatch between vote share and seat share: of the major parties only the Liberal Democrats enjoyed a proportionate return.

Unfairness of FPTP

As the results came in, Reform UK, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens all remarked on the unfairness of our first-past-the-post electoral system, where the overall vote share and the allocation of seats are often wildly mismatched, and may form an unlikely alliance over the course of the coming administration to campaign to reform the system and to move to a more proportional representation. They will point to a low overall turnout of 60% as evidence of wider public disengagement from a flawed and dysfunctional electoral system.

Another view of the mismatch: while Labour won a seat for every 23,555 votes cast for it, the figure for Reform was 823,444 and for the Greens 485,816.

So the nation now faces a radically changed electoral map, with huge swatches of traditionally blue territory turned red, yellow and Green. The predicted landslide was as momentous as expected, with carefully targeted campaigns on the part of the main opposition parties generating big dividends. The overall message, though, was clear, namely that the nation wanted the Conservatives gone, taking whatever action was necessary in different localities to ensure that preferred outcome.

The embrace of Labour was more cautious, and markedly more muted than in 1997, with talk of a grudging or loveless landslide, but there can be no doubting the extent of the political journey Starmer’s Labour has made in just five years.

Under our first-past-the -post system, the winner takes all, and as we head into the early days of a new government, Starmer and his Cabinet begin the hard work rebuilding trust in politics after the multiple crises and chaos of recent years. The public appetite for change is clear, and many will wish them well, whilst accepting that it is a formidable task.

 

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